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Water Level Recorder Museum

Water level recording devices are used to create a record of water surface elevation over some time period. This information is needed for various reasons including the following:

Establishing tide levels in the seas.
Developing time records of groundwater level in wells.
Securing records of flowrates in open channels with weirs and flumes.
Establishing flood levels.

Measuring water levels by hand is time consuming and tedious. Water level recorders eliminate this tedium and have been popular with scientists working with water level measurements for at least a hundred years. One of the recorders in this museum demonstrates that this type of recorder is at least this old.

Water Level Recorders



	Vintage 1900 water level recorder constructed by Mechanical Engineering students of the Colorado Agricultural College (Colorado State University).			William Ainsworth water level recorder. Marked "Denver Colo." Clock is marked in French as a lever escapement. Found in a box marked "Ralph Parshall" at the old Agricultural Engineering Laboratory at Colorado State University, ca. 1975.

	W. and L. E. Gurley water level recorder with a patent date of 1914. Found in a box marked "Ralph Parshall" at the old Agricultural Engineering Laboratory at Colorado State University, ca. 1975.			Belfort 5-FW-1 water level recorder that was still being used in the 1970's but no longer manufactured today. Current recorders typically use electronic data logging.
	These recorders utilize mechanical clocks to turn a chart (C. A. C., Ainsworth, and Belfort) or move a pen (Gurley). The other axis of the recorder, the pen (C. A. C., Ainsworth, and Belfort) or drum (Gurley), is driven by a tape or cable attached to a float that moves with the water surface. A plot of water level versus time (a hydrograph) is produced. The C. A. C. design uses gearing in the pen drive to allow a large change in water level to be "de-amplified" to fit onto a chart. A similar function is achieved in the Belfort design through the use of a cam to drive the pen. The Gurley and Ainsworth designs record water level change directly on the chart.